The Beer
We brew a single style of beer, a Czech-inspired landbier lager. It’s light with a golden malt sweetness, a gentle, subdued hop profile, and a low bitterness that leaves room for the delicate barley flavor.
We work directly with a group of Alberta farmers who grow organic and/or regenerative barley crops, and we partner with Hogarth Malting in Olds, AB, who floor-malt the barley to our specifications. We brew using traditional Czech decoction brewing methods, and we package solely in kegs to be served on draft at preferred bars and restaurants.
What is landbier?
Landbier is an old term that literally means “country beer,” and it refers to a beer that is brewed using a traditional brewing method while utilizing hyper-local ingredients and/or recipes. We are brewing a Czech-inspired landbier, which means we are using the highly respected Czech decoction mashing methods, but instead of using Czech grains, we’ve chosen to showcase Alberta barley.
The Brand
Beer used to be a humble drink that people made in their kitchens. A household staple, part of daily sustenance, brewed by a matriarch by fermenting their family's bread recipe.
Alexa Gilker and Blake Enemark wanted to make a beer that honoured and returned to those roots.
Formerly a playwright and a musician respectively, Alexa and Blake had then spent years in and around the trendy North American craft beer industry, with Blake brewing in Toronto and Calgary, and Alexa traveling while working in the film industry, sampling and collecting “hype” beers along the way.
As newlyweds, Blake and Alexa traveled to Europe for the first time together, where they experienced beer the way Europeans drink it– casually, communally, and without pretension. France, Italy, Slovenia, Greece-- they began to fall in love with beer brewed outside the North American craft beer bubble, brewed with heritage traditions and local ingredients, and nowhere did they experience this more than in the Czech Republic, where the beer is almost exclusively lager personalized by hundreds of regional breweries.
This was beer that tasted like a specific place– the barley, the water, the tradition of that region, preserved through floor malting and decoction mashing. It was beer “terroir,” the way wine people talk about it.
They came home thinking about two things: one, Alberta's exceptional barley, which is used by breweries all around the world but rarely showcased using brewing methods that actually allow the unique grain flavor profile to be highlighted; and two, how casually but respectfully the Czech people consume their beer: in small local bars tailored to showcasing a particular region’s product. This was beer that was hyper local and intentionally brewed: simple, yet elevated.
After several more years of traveling abroad, eating, drinking, and talking together, their vision crystallized: what if they focused solely on one lager beer, brewed with Alberta barley from organic and regenerative farmers, using traditional Czech brewing methods that take time but preserve what the grain really tastes like? And what if they served their beer solely in bars and restaurants that encourage you to drink alongside good company at the dinner table?
And so their Alberta landbier was created; a style that isn’t really a style at all but a way of thinking, a determination to create a beer that expresses a specific place, the way a great beer truly can. The same method, refined over time, letting each batch express the barley harvest from that season. Respecting heritage, elevating the beer experience but without pretense, getting things back to basics: water, barley, hops, and yeast, chosen with purpose and brewed with patience.
This is Bread Water.
